How to Develop a Real-Time Car Sharing App? By James Tredwell on July 23, 2021 With the advent of digitization, the face of global sectors transformed significantly. Many new and future-proof business models emerged, and many of the existing sectors revolutionized with next-gen technologies. Car sharing app development is one such robust sector that gained high momentum in the past few years. Car-sharing apps have become the most profitable business model globally due to their time-saving features, cost-effectiveness, and positive impact on the environment. Car sharing app development has become a widely accepted segment that offers excellent customer experience and profitability to its investors. Don’t you believe us? Here are some market stats on car-sharing applications! The global car-sharing market is expected to grow from $85.8 billion to a whopping $185.1 billion by 2026. The US taxi sharing market has generated a market revenue of $14.7 billion by the year 2019. The total taxi sharing app users in the US alone exceeded 100 million and is further expected to outbreak this number. In India alone, the total revenues earned by these taxi-sharing apps was $3.7 billion by the year 2020. Hence, one cannot deny the bright and promising future of the car-sharing app development market for years to come. But, developing one such competitive car sharing app is undoubtedly a tedious task. You should have explicit knowledge of the market to create your own car-sharing app like those prevailing in the market. That’sThat’s why, as an experienced app development company, today, we will be sharing a detailed approach to building a feature-rich car-sharing app that can outgrow your competitors. So, without wasting any further, let’s get started! Car Sharing App Development – Getting Started Here are a few critical steps you need to consider to create a feature-rich car-sharing app that suits your brand value. Understand Your Target Market and Target Audience So, the first and foremost aspect that one needs to consider while developing a car-sharing app is understanding your target market and understanding your customers’ pain points. You need to be very clear about what type of app you will create and how it will help your target audience. For that, you can ask yourself some questions like: What is the primary concern of my customers? How will my app solve that problem? What features will lure the customers? What other apps are they using? Once you have all the answers, it will be easy to develop your app as per the user’s expectations. Similarly, you also need to identify a suitable and promising market for your car-sharing app. That market should have your target audience and should be free from competitors. Analyze Your Competitors Another crucial aspect that is essential for the success of your car-sharing app is to analyze your competitors. You need to identify and analyze all the business strategies of your competitive apps, viz., what are their features, what marketing strategies they follow, their monetization models, and so on. Besides that, you also need to have an idea of the tech-stack they have used to develop their car-sharing app. That’sThat’s so because analyzing your competitors will give you a clear idea of what to include and how to lure customers. So, to help you out, we have listed some of the top playing car-sharing apps in the market! Skyscanner Whether it is booking flights, planning your travel, or booking cabs for transportation, Skyscanner is the very first choice of the people. The app offers some amazing discounts and even helps you search for the vehicles based on their fuel type, seating type, and many other filters. It’sIt’s features include price comparison, custom vehicle search, referral bonus and discounts, car rental services, and more. Turo Another excellent car-sharing app that has been attracting users from across the globe is Turo. With over 800+ car options and some unique features like connecting with local hosts, monitoring the vehicle’s performance, AI chatbot, and more, Turo has generated a market value of around $1.2 billion. Getaround When it comes to a quick and user-friendly car-sharing app, then Getaround is consistently named. With its fast onboarding and easy verification process, you can get your rental car in just a matter of minutes. Besides that, you can even share a car on an hourly or daily basis. Other features of the app include keyless entry, remote unlocking, geolocation, and more. Hertz Last but not least, we have Hertz as our competitive car-sharing app. Hertz enables the users to book the rides in advance and view/edit the details anytime they want. With the Hertz app, you can track your rides and can get recipes for the total expenses. Besides that, the app even offers social media sign-up, faster verifications, parking slot searching functionality, and more. Look for the Latest Yet Reliable Tech-Stack Once you have got all your answers and have analyzed your competitors, the most crucial step is validating your idea and including the latest tech stack for your car-sharing app. You need to check the feasibility of your idea before investing in it. That’s because an idea, when turned into a reality, faces many ups and downs, so it’s better to validate it before beginning the development. That’sThat’s where experts come into play! An expert car-sharing app development company will always offer experienced engineers that could validate your ideas and could offer you the best suggestions for them. They will also know the latest and most reliable tech stack that could help you in the long run. Hence, it is always wise to look for a company that offers expert consultation services with app development. Here we have mentioned some of the latest and future-ready tech-stack that could elevate your car-sharing app development: For Android App – Java, Kotlin For iOS App – Objective C, Swift For Cross-Platform App – Xamarin, Flutter, React Native For Hybrid App – Ionic, PhoneGap For UI – SwiftUI, UIKit, AndroidUI For Database – Hive, SQLite, Firebase Real-time Database Include Next-Gen Features When it comes to the success of any mobile application in today’s digital world, the two most important factors that impact it are features and design. Features are the most crucial element that can either make your app a hit or destroy it after the launch. Hence, you have to include at least two to three advanced features that are not present in your competitor’s app and useful for your users. Here are some of the features that we would suggest you to include in your custom car sharing app. For Users: Features Description Social Login Enable your users to login to your car sharing app with their social accounts. Real-Time Tracking Offer a live tracking functionality to your users to track their drivers and tide in real-time. Connect with Driver Ensure an accurate and timely ride to your users by connecting them with the drivers. Digital Payments Offer ease to your users by including multiple payment channels in your car sharing app. Cancel Ride Make it easy for your users to book and cancel the rides at any time with a dedicated feature. For Drivers: Features Description Accept/Reject Rides Offer real-time notifications of the rides to your drivers and enable them to accept/reject those rides at any time due to their busy schedule. Track Earnings Offer a centralized dashboard to your drivers to help them view their total earnings including the tips received from each of the rides. Geolocation Help your drivers to get an accurate location of the destinatination by offering them an accurate map of the route with real-time traffic. Contact Users Make it easy for your drivers to locate the users, and save their fuel by connecting them with the riders using call/chat functionality. Driving Alerts Offer all the driving parameters including fuel level, speed, and other driving alerts to your users, to make their rides safe. For Admin: Features Description User Management Add users to your car sharing app and manage the existing ones with easy verification. Total Earnings Get a record of the total earning of all your drivers and your app through a centralized dashboard. Allocate Rides Allocate the rides to your nearest valuable drivers on the basis of their schedules and nearness to the destination. Geofencing Keep a track of the routes your drivers follow and restrict them on going in certain disputed areas by creating virtual fences. Route Optimization Make it easy and safe for your drivers to complete the rides by offering them optimized routes in real-time. Driving Alerts Get real-time driving alerts and solve all your driver’s problems with simple tap and remote functionalities. Push Notifications Alert your users about changes in policies or any recent updates of your car sharing app with push notifications. Hire Professional App Developers Here comes the most critical aspect of car-sharing app development. No matter what features you include or what designs you have in your mind, if you do not have an experienced and reliable development partner, then everything is in vain. Hence, we always suggest our users choose the most experienced and repeated app development company as their development partner. Reason being that firstly an experienced firm will have all the resources and tools needed for a cost-effective and successful car-sharing app development. Secondly, their developers will be well aware of all the issues that might come during the development process and even have the answers. Lastly, a reputed firm will indeed offer you all the professional services during and after the development to make your app a hit for years to come. Hence, look closely and only choose a partner that offers all these services! Test Your App Our last and final step in car-sharing app development is testing. Testing is the most crucial step amongst all the steps mentioned by adobe. Why? That’s because testing identifies and resolves all the issues that were left unidentified during the development process. That eventually signifies a smooth and user-friendly app that works on all platforms and under all circumstances. Hence, always choose an experienced development partner that offers you either manual or automated testing services. Because if your app runs smoothly, it will also enhance the user experience, which will drive profits and brand value for your business. What is the Cost of Developing a Car Sharing App? So, we are at the most awaited section of our article – the cost of developing a feature-rich car-sharing app. Now, many of you might be looking for an exact price of development, but that is a very tedious task! That’s so because the price of any custom mobile application depends on many crucial factors. For instance, the choice of technology, complexities of the features, customizations, design elements, testing method, and MVP creation impact the cost of development. Hence, if you are actively looking for accurate cost estimation, it is advisable to discuss your idea with experts. An expert would carefully analyze your requirements and offer an accurate cost estimation matching your needs and wants. Final Takeaway! That was all about car-sharing app development. To conclude, we can say that the world today is evolving faster, and if you are someone who deals directly with the customers, then paying attention to all those changes is essential. Car sharing is one such sector that has quickly evolved in today’s digital market. And to succeed in such a competitive business, it is vital to strictly follow the latest and most reliable trends that can help you in the long run. So, choose wisely, and follow our steps for successful app development. Till then, Happy Reading! Author Bio.:–Sourabh Sharma is an experienced technical content writer at Matellio who has a love and passion for covering various aspects of next-gen technology. He enjoys implementing various writing styles and techniques. He is an engineer which further gives him a broad spectrum of understanding various tech tools and platforms.